The New REPUBLIC November 7, 2012 Romney Had a Chance to Beat Obama, and He Blew It By: Non Schelber Back in the spring, the Obama campaign essentially telegraphed its re- election strategy: First it would soften up Mitt Romney as the sort of heartless over-dog who could watch Seabiscuit and somehow root for his big scary rival. Then it would add a policy dimension to the argument, accusing Romney of wanting to cut taxes for the rich while defunding the programs the rest of us rely on. The personal argument would explain why Romney wanted to screw the middle class (because he's an economic overlord who looks down on them with disdain). The policy argument would explain the how. What's surprising isn't that this strategy worked in the end, with Obama eking out a narrow popular vote win (even as he routed Romney in the Electoral College). The Obama folks had clearly scouted out their opponent and sized him up well. What's surprising is that, having watched Chicago telegraph its plan, the Romney campaign chose not to adjust its own strategy in response. As I noted yesterday, there were any number of policies Romney could have adopted to defuse his ruthless rich-guy image. He could have come out for raising the miniscule tax on capital gains, which nets him millions of dollars each year. He could have proposed scaling back the tax subsidies that make it so profitable for buyout firms like Bain to take over struggling companies. With Obama likely to win Florida, Ohio, and Virginia by a combined total of under five percentage points, Romney didn't need to reinvent himself in order to tilt the race his way. He just had to take the edge of a bit, albeit in credible fashion. Instead — improbably — Romney ran in the opposite direction. Having allowed the Obama campaign to define him in unflattering personal terms, he didn't even wait for their policy follow-up. He made the policy argument for them. Emphatically. Romney's tax plan would have frozen th